Labor Day 2007

West Yellowstone

At the end of our fun trip to Utah we went on our Annual Arveseth Labor Day vacation-this year we were off to West Yellowstone. I was so excited when I heard our destination because I hadn't been to Yellowstone since 1989 and I've been wanting to go back for a long time. The girls and I drove up with Steve's parents on Thursday since Steve was still in Connecticut, but he flew out that night and met up with us on Friday afternoon.

When we got there on Thursday it was about dinner time so we went with Kris and her boys and Jim and Renae to get some dinner. We parked right next to a museum that had some fun animals out front that Abi loved to play with...

These painted buffalo were all over town and for some reason, every time Abi saw one she had to go and stick her hands in it's nostrils-WEIRD! I'm not sure what the fascination was about.Abi and Jace had no problem ignoring the "Stay Off" signs. And of course, I'm a great caretaker and ignored them too in order to get a funny picture. Don't tell anyone!

The next day we headed into the park for some sightseeing. We saw a ton of elk and a few buffalo on our way in.Today we were going to see the Artist's Paint Pots. They were pretty neat...we didn't realize that there would be a bit of a hike to this one so we took our double stroller with us-thanks Scott and Jim for carrying it up the big hill!

Abi was intrigued with these little pools, but she couldn't figure out why we couldn't get in them. Luckily she didn't succeed in her attempts to go swimming...she was a good girl!

But she did decide to lay down in the dirt-I think she thought she was at the beach or something, she was laying in it and playing with it. After this we went and had some lunch and then went back to the hotel to get Steve-he had finally arrived!!!

He was so happy to see the girls and they (and I) were soooo happy to see him after almost 2 weeks. The first thing he wanted to do (after getting some lunch) was take Abi swimming. Steve's brother, Doug, and their daughter, Eliza had the same idea, so we headed to the pool...

Abi and Eliza were just like little fish in the water, they had a great time-especially splashing their daddys!

A question: Why did the buffalo cross the street???

Answer:

So we could get a picture!

This was so cool...this buffalo walked right up the middle of the street and right past Steve's window, if he'd stuck his arm out the window he could have touched it. There was another buffalo with it that crossed right in front of our car and went past Abi's and my window-but all I could get was a pic of it's rear end that wasn't very attractive, so this is all you're gonna get!

After the buffalo crossing, we were back on track to the fountain paint pot-they were neat but very smelly!!!

After the paint pots we took a drive to Old Faithful, by the time we got there both of the girls were sleeping so Renae offered to stay in the car to watch them so Steve and I could go see Old Faithful...Thank you!!!

The kids were sooo excited waiting for it to go off...Ryan, Corvin, Zach, Syd, Maddie, and Amanda

And they weren't disappointed!

After this excitement Steve and I decided we should take the girls back to the hotel since they were napping, but we took a little detour on the Firehole Loop just to see what was back there. When we were getting ready to drive a way a man came up to us to tell us that there was a geyser there that was about to go off so we should take the closest parking spot we could find if we wanted to see it. We sure are glad we did, this geyser was soooo great. It's called the Great Fountain Geyser and only goes off every 12 hours-and when it goes off it keeps on going and way high too-the ranger there said it went about 160 feet in the air...

By the end of the trip Emma still felt like this, I'm sure being able to ride in the stroller helped, plus she was excited about her new moose animal, however, the rest of us felt like...

And I'm sure that's how all of you feel after reading this novel of a posting- Thanks for reading!!!